A controversial government study today revealed an astounding conclusion: free lunches are expensive and lack nutrition. All copies of the study have since disappeared and the members of the blue-ribbon panel which produced it have not been seen since it was released.

President Obama condemned the results, alleging that the panelists were "receiving bread under the table from the restaurant industry."

"It's nonsense," said the president. "Michelle and I get free lunches all the time and they don't cost us a thing. As far as not being nutritious, well, can anyone believe that after seeing the size of my wife's..." The president was interrupted by a loud noise off stage before completing his thought.

"Just think about it: 'free' means it don't cost anything, so it's free! And 'lunch' is food, which means it's nourishing. Put them together and you get a nourishing free lunch! It's not rocket science!"

"This is right wing propaganda designed to deprive people of their free lunches!" said Forrus, whose union is threatening to strike unless their demands for a wage increase are met. "Distributing free lunches is a tough job - you can't expect us to work for NOTHING!"

"I have never read anything so heartless and insensitive in my life" stated Willie Cheatem, spokesperson for the Lunch Manufacturers Association, a food processing and repast fabricators trade group.

"How can they say free lunches are expensive? Our members make lunches as inexpensively as possible, barely 20% or so more than it would cost you to buy food and make lunch yourself. Our profit margins are razor thin - any lower and lunch manufacturers would be just breaking even. It wouldn't be worth being in business."

In spite of the intense criticism, the study's supporters continue to stand behind its absurd conclusions. One such advocate, who wished to remain anonymous as he was hiding under his desk in an undisclosed location after being chased from his office by an angry mob, offered this explanation:

"Look, there are people who grow the food, people who assemble the food into lunches, and people who hand out the lunches. All of them want to be paid. If the lunches are FREE, then who the hell is going to pay all these people?"

"Everybody wants things to be cheaper or free, but for work they do, they want a raise," he continued. "That's contradictory. If goods and services become cheaper, how can the companies that produce them pay everyone more? It doesn't add up!"

He then tried to prove his points with the following Tweets made by the renown Democrat strategist Donna Brazile.

But experts remain unanimous in their condemnation of the dubious study.

"That kind of hateful, divisive rhetoric is what poisons the debate", stated Nobel Prize winning Economist and Lunch Eater for the NY Times, Paul Krugman. "Do you want to go to lunch? I have an expense account, it's on the house!"

I always go over every inch of each Putout graphic with a magnifying glass to avoid missing anything. Sometimes a use a microscope (optical not electron).

And I try to never, ever miss attending a "photo shoot" or oil painting lessons. I'm trying to get one of our recent oil paintings posted

I found our last modeling session. I don't like posting uncovered nudes but being that it is oil and abstract I will make an exception for the elevation of the people's cultural experience and art appreciation.

Of course, no free meal of delicious beets at Kremlin White House is complete without excellent $2 cigarette imported from New York City. Here we have recent photo of Comrade Obama, engaged in jovial after-dinner conversation with unidentified administrative aide.

Comrades, do not believe the lies from the shifty one, the one on the right. The one on the right has faulty political ideology. The political criminal on the left tried to conquer territory outside his boundaries. The political criminal on the right is trying to conquer territory inside his boundaries. He is the leader of the terrorist organization know as "the enemy within".

Well... Unless you're a devout Robert Heinlein fan, most people don't actually know where the acronym comes from. It was one of his favourite sayings. He wrote a beautiful description of the characteristics inherent to a dying or sick society, in his novel, Friday. If I can work up the energy to get up and limp over to find it on my bookshelves (if it's not boxed up... I have more books than shelves), I'll post it. It's eerily... nay, frighteningly familiar. Brilliant man. Iconoclast. Contrarian. Enigmatic - sometimes surprisingly traditional, and alternately, surprisingly forward thinking, and before it became a bad word. Savagely screwed over for what they did to his novella, Starship Troopers, which is actually something that should be mandatory reading in all civics classes, or for anyone who wants the right to vote. Sadly missed.

Why do all the beets look like big radishes to me? Beets look different in Kanadistan. Or maybe it's that I haven't slept in two days.

Any way you look at Tanstaafl, at this point, it may well be impossible to (re)assemble, and even if you manage to, it's gonna fall apart really quickly.

Free lunches overpriced, lack nutrition and cause cancer. Too many colorants derived from coal. Coal is OK in your dish, it's not OK in the air as carbon dioxide. Brilliant liberals. Size matters (of coke), quality doesn't. Even in coke, if they only banned aspartame (causes cancer) and other crap, I'd be very much happy with it. Or fluoride in the water, which causes mental retardation in children.

Well... Unless you're a devout Robert Heinlein fan, most people don't actually know where the acronym comes from. It was one of his favourite sayings. He wrote a beautiful description of the characteristics inherent to a dying or sick society, in his novel, Friday. If I can work up the energy to get up and limp over to find it on my bookshelves (if it's not boxed up... I have more books than shelves), I'll post it.In The Moon is a Harsh Mistress the acronym is written on the flag of the liberated Luna.

The people's cause lost a lot, when Mr. Heinlein switched from his pre-war Socialist persuasion to the right from Joe McCarthy...

The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by precedent, by implication, by erosion, by default, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until the day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology. ~ Ayn Rand